


the sound after lightning

by WingsOfTime



Series: ikael [26]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Comfort, Drinking, Gen, feat my hc that thancred is maybe touch-starved a little, healthy relationships feat communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-09-01 00:51:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20249443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingsOfTime/pseuds/WingsOfTime
Summary: Thancred isn't... very used to all of this yet. He still, more often than not, does not know what to do, or what to say.Alcohol has never been a very good solution, but at least it is a familiar one.





	the sound after lightning

How Thancred is spending his night, in the corner of this dank old tavern in Kholusia, is a pastime as old as time itself. And one he cannot help but slink back to, when all hope is lost and all he has left to do is stare at the bottom of a bottle. It is like a lover he keeps coming back to—he does not do so often enough to get him addicted, but enough to remember their name, what they taste like.

In this case, their name is Iso-Leeq’s Darkest Liquor, and they taste like burning, bittersweet liquid honey. Or did, at least, before Thancred's constant sipping turned his tongue and throat too numb to tell. He is not overly concerned; Ikael is in the area to take care of him should he overindulge—which he has, he is self-cognisant enough to admit—and Ryne is at the inn, hopefully slumbering and unaware of his current state.

Thancred balefully eyes the last drop running stubborn laps around the base of his tankard. He should stop drinking and turn in, he knows rationally. At the very least, it will save him some vengeance from his hangover the next morning. But he does not want to stop drinking—he wants to keep mumbling his problems into the uncaring dark.

He switches on the rudimentary linkpearl he has been assigned for their forays into the Empty. “’Kael,” he mumbles into the static.

“_Hello? Thancred, is that you?”_

Ikael is talking to him now. Thancred frowns as the words he has been mulling over all evening fight to push their way out of his mouth—_You can’t know how much anyone ever meant to me, least of all yourself, How could you, How dare you—_and says, “’m at the tavern. Come get me.”

_“Oh! Okay, yeah! Thancred, are you… drunk? You sound—"_

Thancred shuts his linkpearl off. “Crrr… crrr… bad signal,” he mutters a beat later, when nothing but silence is there to answer him. He tips his tankard onto his face, sticking his tongue into it, and sinks down in his chair to wait.

Some inexplicably long yet short time later, Thancred spots a familiar lithe form maneuvering through the tavern, carefully stepping over and around the few sorry drink-sodden bastards in his way. Thancred watches his tail as it darts and curls, entertained—has it always done that?

“Yer tail’s funny,” he tells Ikael once he is close enough to talk to.

Ikael’s large ears swivel towards him. “Pardon?” he says absently. He moves a lot closer to Thancred, leaning down to inspect him, and Thancred patiently stares back, waiting for him to make his assessment or… kiss him, or something. He never quite knows with Ikael.

He tips his head to show his cheek, somewhat hopeful. Ikael says, “Oh, what is that welt on your face?! You cannot be comfortable like this, poor thing.”

Thancred is very comfortable. He thinks, perhaps, that were he sober, the hard wooden bar of the chair digging into his shoulder blades, or the soreness of his arse from the firmness of his chair would bother him, but he finds that in his current state he does not mind at all.

Ikael is staring at him with something too close to concern. Thancred's black mood returns suddenly, souring his thoughts and making him push Ikael’s reaching hands away. Don’t touch him. Ikael shouldn’t touch him, not if he is going to say things like that.

Ikael doesn’t seem to understand this. “Come on, _s_…” he begins to say, reaching out, and then stops. “…Thancred,” he finishes too late.

He is making an odd face, as if he has just tasted cheese that has gone funny. Thancred is not in a mind to care. He grumbles at Ikael, trying to shoo him away with his tankard. He misses both wildly and dramatically, and Ikael easily plucks the mug from his loose fingers.

“I don’t know how much you’ve had to drink, but I think it was far more than enough,” Ikael says as he tries to reach for him again. This time, Thancred allows it, if only because he cannot put together enough of what is left of his reason why not. Ikael smiles at him, which makes his chest hurt, and coaxes, “Now come,” in that very soft, nice tone of his.

Thancred feels his resolve beginning to crumble. “’s… not true, y’know,” he tells Ikael, trying to frown. He makes to push at him, but his hands only fall uselessly against his chest, catching in the folds of his top. Even inebriated, he cannot truly push Ikael away. His frown creases, turning spoilt. “’s not true.”

“What is not true?” Ikael asks. He is moving him without freeing his hands, which is doubly a miracle and annoying. Thancred ties to tug them back, to no avail. His mouth twinges deeper.

“Y’can't just… say things like that,” he replies. Ikael pulls him to his feet, and he obediently rises, stumbling. Ikael catches him; of course he does. “Y’can't just…”

Thancred shakes his head. Every time he thinks about it, it hits him like a blow from a Talos. This time physically—he finds himself staggering into Ikael’s steady grip as the thought strikes him again. He reaches for his drink—but it is not there, and he grimaces.

“It’s horrid,” he tells Ikael, finally dragging his eyes up to look at him. “Yer horrid.”

He doesn’t mean it. And maybe it is those words, or maybe it is, unbeknownst to Thancred, the redness of his eyes and the hoarseness of his voice, but Ikael stops trying to maneuver him. Stops and stares up at him with something quiet and attentive.

“I can’t just say what, Thancred?” he asks softly. Thancred shakes his head, letting it loll it away… and Ikael pats him rapidly on the cheek, tips his face towards him again. “Hey, hey. Thancred.”

Thancred is forced to look at him once more, into those horrible, lovely green eyes. “What did I say, hm?” Ikael asks with his face in his hands, and he should not be able to sound this soft, this caring. Thancred hates it.

He does not know where he would be without it. He looks down, leans into the touch of Ikael’s hands.

“Y’said I didn’t care ‘bout you,” he mumbles. He does not quite remember the exact words now, not in his drunken state of mind, but he has dragged them through the mud enough times that he is convinced that this is what they look like coming out of it, bared and filthy. “Said I never cared about you.”

_Like I’m incapable of love. Like I’m incapable of—how dare he—_

But Thancred has no more room for anger, even just the little he had held. He closes his eyes, pressing further into the comfort of Ikael’s touch—reaches up and clumsily holds it there, to keep it, hoping it will not withdraw.

“Is that what…? I didn’t say that,” Ikael mutters quietly. Thancred does not want to listen to lies; he stands there and instead tries to feel as Ikael does, down to the grooves of fingerprints against his skin.

He does not think it works—all he feels is warmth and the clamminess of his own hands, larger than Ikael’s. Why is Ikael smaller than him, if he is so much bigger on the inside?

“Thancred, we—we should get you to the inn,” Ikael says. He starts to withdraw his hands and Thancred holds them in place, forceful. He fears, for some ridiculous reason that he cannot name, that if Ikael lets him go now, he may never hold him again.

“Thancred,” says Ikael, and his voice is creasing now, bending with Thancred's heart. His thumb strokes, warm and sure, across his cheek, and Thancred's grip around his wrists tighten.

“’m sorry,” he blurts as he opens his eyes, warm and wet. “’m sorry if I never made y’feel…”

He trails off, losing his train of thought once more. Instead he pulls Ikael’s stroking fingers back and kisses them, chapped lips against scabbed knuckles rough and abrasive. He remembers, somewhere in the back of his mind, that that is what one is supposed to do with a softer thing one wants to woo, if forcefulness is something they run from. Thancred does not want to woo Ikael, but… he does want to keep him.

Ikael’s voice is thick when he speaks once more, although Thancred does not notice. “You do not apologize for anything, _sína_,” he says. “You were never wrong to me.”

Thancred is too drunk to make sense of what he is saying. He registers when Ikael begins to gently pull him away, and he follows, greedily pressing himself close to soak up the physical contact. By the time they are breathing in cool night air, he and Ikael are practically taking the same steps.

He presses his nose into Ikael’s cheek, and frowns deeply when he catches a shine in his eyes. He pulls back.

“Yer crying,” he says quietly. His grip on Ikael’s arm tightens. “B’cause of me. Again.”

Ikael, however, shakes his head. “It’s just the wind, Thancred,” he says in a soft voice. “Come on, inn’s this way.”

Thancred tugs at him insistently. “Please don’t cry,” he mumbles. “I feel like such a bastard when y’do.”

It is an open, honest confession, and one he would never make. He does not know why he does.

Ikael’s eyes fall. “We will not talk about this now, when your words are not yours to keep,” he says. “Come with me, yeah?”

Thancred ignores him, instead choosing to clumsily tug him close. “Hug, please,” he mumbles indistinctly, because he needs armour, and he does not know where his is. Ikael is the only person whom he can simply… ask. And for some ridiculous reason, he does not, half the time when he needs it. So he will now. To make up for all of those times when he didn’t.

Ikael hugs him for a long, long time. When he is done, they are somehow standing in front of a bed. It is in the inn, in Thancred's room, although he cannot puzzle that out in this current state.

“…cred? You awake now?” Ikael is gently shaking him. “Please tell me you are and also that you forgot me calling you pet names.”

Thancred is awake. Calling him what? He groans, falling towards the bed. He does not think he makes it, but somehow he does, and the next thing he knows he is lying down _so_ comfortably, feeling… so, so tired. He reaches out for Ikael on instinct, and is gratified when he feels him right next to him—a solid, warm comfort. He tugs until Ikael is surrounding him like a blanket.

“Goodnight,” Ikael whispers, awkwardly craning his neck from his current twisted position to kiss him on the cheek. He is answered by a snore.

~*~

Thancred awakens in mild comfort. The moment he opens his eyes, of course, the light shining in from the window decides to pierce through his eyeballs into his skull like a lance, but at least he is mildly comfortable when it does.

A glance down at himself reveals why. Ikael is not next to him, but he appears to have both tucked him in and undressed him to an extent to where he would not wake up feeling as if he had simply passed out drunk on the bed the night before, which is exactly what Thancred remembers happening. Ikael’s mindfulness is usually thorough, however—he glances at the inn bed’s small nightstand, and surely enough finds a small bottle and a note placed neatly on top.

_Thancred – Drink this before eating anything. Call me when hangover is gone. – Ikael_ _♡_

Thancred weighs his options. He unfortunately remembers, albeit vaguely, what he had blabbered last night. Damn him for going self-pity drinking with Ikael in range (although at the same time he is endlessly thankful), because he is certain Ikael remembers as well. He sighs, thinks about the night before for a long few minutes, and downs the contents of the bottle.

“Ikael,” he calls into his linkpearl when he has delayed the inevitable for long enough, “I’m awake. Are you bringing breakfast?”

There is a pause before he gets an answer. “_Yeah_—_of course, Thancred,_” Ikael replies. He sounds cordial enough, and Thancred feels some weight slough off his shoulders. This isn’t going to be… this isn’t going to be difficult, then.

Ikael comes up with warmth—two bowls of hot oatmeal and a smile. Thancred accepts it all gratefully, ducking his head when Ikael sits next to him on the bed.

“Hey,” says Ikael. “You know, we… don’t have to talk. But I just wanted to say, um…”

He toes at the ground, nervous for an uncharacteristic second, then looks up at Thancred with a smaller, but more genuine smile.

“What I say when I…” The side of his bottom lip pulls inwards as he nibbles on it. “What I say when I am in a… a _state_ is not anything you have to pay mind to. Sometimes words are… sometimes words are very stupid, and not right, and I _know_ that except when I am saying them. And sometimes they're there just to push,” He makes a pushing motion with his hands, “bad feelings to be more instead of being truth.”

His eyes flick away as he considers his words, and then he gives a decisive nod, apparently confident in what he has said. “Yeah.”

Thancred absorbs this information. _It is not you_, Ikael is saying. _I made a snap conclusion, and it was wrong_.

Thancred is not Ikael; he does not need repetition and reassurance to believe something is true, but he does need it to _be_ true. He feels the honesty in Ikael’s words, however; in his body language—and even without that, he knows from deep within himself that he would not lie. And so he nods.

“I wish I could speak with you oftentimes,” he says quietly, changing the subject. “But it is when you are not in a state to accept it.”

He swallows down a spoonful of oatmeal. Ikael always adds cinnamon to his oatmeal, somehow. How he finds it is beyond anyone’s guess.

Ikael’s ears shift, flatten. “… When?” he questions, drawing in more of his lip to gnaw on.

Thancred glances at him with a downwards sweep of his lashes. “When it is about you,” he says, gently but honestly.

Ikael looks struck harshly by this for a second, but then his face untenses, and he bobs his head in a nod. He understands.

“You can… wait until after,” he says. He swallows, and then, “Do you?”

“I try to, but I do not succeed,” Thancred confesses. “I tell myself I will wait for you to recover, and then I wait for too long. Too early and I will upset you, too late and I fear the moment has passed.”

He gives a loose shrug. Ikael frowns.

“You will not upset me, _sín—_u-uh_, _Thancred_,_” he says. “Not _you_. It is just… if there are too many heavy things for me to think of, all at once, it is…”

“… Too much,” Thancred finishes. Ikael nods.

Ikael’s tail wraps around Thancred's waist as he shimmies closer, and he gives it a gentle squeeze. Ikael goes still as he seems to think—hopefully he will not let his oatmeal go cold.

After a minute, he says, “How about this: After it will not become too much for me, I will ask you if you have your own words to say. Maybe there is a specific time period to wait, or maybe not. Either way, I feel as if you shall get a sense for it after some time.”

He smiles up at Thancred, small and a little shy. “You are good with me,” he says.

Thancred smiles back, equally faint. “I try to be, my dear,” he replies.

Ikael blushes very lightly at that, and Thancred smirks internally. If Ikael is calling him private endearments now, he reckons, then he can do the same. Although perhaps he should pick out something in Fae; that will also give _him_ the boost of another language, and besides that, he can make it a running theme.

He is sifting through his limited vocabulary to pick out dirty-sounding words with sweet meanings when Ikael flicks some oatmeal onto his chin with his spoon. Thancred looks at him. Ikael giggles.

“Eat your food, yeah?” he says. “Silly man.”

“I am not the one being juvenile,” Thancred returns with an arched eyebrow. He wipes the oatmeal off his chin with a forefinger. After a second, he flings it back at Ikael.

It lands in his eye. Ikael shrieks as Thancred grins, delighted. Ikael’s bowl tips dangerously on his knees from his squirming, and Thancred sees the next moment in his mind’s eye with crystal clarity. He lunges for the bowl before it can spill its contents onto Ikael, temporarily forgetting his own half-finished meal in the process—

Ikael screams a little. Two seconds later, he screams again, although in a distinctly upset tone that hints at his dismay at having his hideous outfit ruined by what looks like, although thankfully does not smell like, vomit.

Thancred stares at the mess. “Oh no,” he says, unable to inject any genuineness into his tone. “Looks like those clothes are done for.”

“You are horrid and ugly and I hate you,” Ikael replies. Thancred makes a considering noise, tipping his head.

“Nothing serious, then,” he says. He chuckles, getting up carefully. “Come on; let us see how well we can clean that up. If you ask me, honestly, it looks better now. Ah-ah—no complaints. It is still my turn to be the centre of attention; it can be yours tomorrow. To the sink now, my dear, and let us wash my clumsiness away.”

~*~

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not a fan of alcoholic thancred, and i don't think he is one or has a drinking problem, but i think he def hit a point in his time on the First where it was the only place he could go. and old habits can be more comfortable than new ones, even if theyre not for the best.
> 
> hope you liked this ! please tell me what you think if you can ;;w;


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